


Abbadon

by Jenwryn



Category: Death Note
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-15
Updated: 2008-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 07:43:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/pseuds/Jenwryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The time has come for Mello to leave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Abbadon

**Author's Note:**

> Ahe, this was again written whilst working on theology revision. Still for that Revelations exam. Hooray for the weird chemistry of my brain. Eh, and it was also ‘inspired’ by the fact that my brother and I got to episodes 25 and 26 of the anime the night before I wrote it, which put my brain into that kind of zone again… which is also why it begins the way it does, which I’ve obviously nicked from the anime rather than the manga. Plus the name ‘abaddon’ keeps springing up all over the place recently (since I bought Pinback’s Summer in Abaddon, lol) and so the word was in my head already. Finally, the second quote in italics, nearer to the end of the story, is also a quote from Revelations, this time 9:6. In my Bible, it’s on the same page as the quote at the start of the story. Finally, you can call this OOC if you wish, but I have a personal theory that Mello's rage against the idea of sharing inheritance with Near was more than 'simply' the fact that he couldn't deal with not being first, but was also an expression of his personal grief... but hey, I'm generally pro-Mello. What can I say?

_They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon..._  
~ Rev. 9:11.

*

The bells rang, and L died.  
The world went dark.  
Kira was as a light.  
And still the world went dark.  
_Lord God, have mercy on our souls..._

A blond boy knelt, with furrowed brow and bitten lip, upon the cold floor of a chapel where princes and nobles had prayed in the ages before his time. One of his hands was splayed out on the stone before him, and his other remained, caught, thumbed on a word in the book he was squeezing the life out of against his knees. Abaddon. Apollyon. _Destroyer_, in English. Matt had joked once, after Mello had read aloud that passage about locusts and torment and scorpion-stings, that it sounded like something out of a computer game. Mello'd laughed until his sides hurt, back then, but it was nothing like a game now. Kira. Abaddon. _End of the world.  
_  
The end of the world would be easier to cope with, he rather thought, as his fingers on the ground bent their nails into the cracks between the chilled stone, because the end of the world was something he knew all about. It was familiar, in its dream-like mess of noise and dragons and salvation and death. This was something else, something different, an invisible fist clutched at the chords of his heart and making it beat out of sync, yet not stopping it altogether - a kind of shadow life where the world kept spinning, but the arrow had fallen out of the compass so that _north _and _south _ceased to exist, and became nothing more than literary devices, or the skerricks of direction in some inventor's fevered imagination.

Direction had gone.

L had gone.

_Abaddon, Apollyon, Kira,_ names, things and legends didn't matter, none of it mattered, because L was dead and the world was upside down.

Deserted.

_Again.  
_  
Mello was having difficultly focussing upon the words on the pages of the book which his thumb and knees held imprisoned between them, and a jag at the corner of his nail had dug through its fine paper, reaving the fifth angel from his trumpet.

_During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die but death will elude them...  
_  
No.

No.

_No.  
_  
That was wrong. It was all wrong. Death was the coward's currency; death was as obtainable as a hairbrush.

Death was the easy way out.

He pushed the Bible off his knees with a grunt, sending it skidding across the floor towards the altar, its corners catching at the cobbles and kipping it sideways; it came to a disorganised halt, seeming for all the world like a broken bird.

Mello looked at it, brushed the hair from his eyes, and then raised his gaze towards the stained glass high beyond the altar. He wasn't surprised when Matt cleared his throat nervously behind him, some minutes later; nothing surprised Mello anymore and, besides, he'd recognised the familiar scratch of his friend's sneakers scuffing against the stone. How often had Matt been sent here to fetch him? _Last time, this time.  
_  
"Uh, Roger says-" began Matt, and Mello could see him vividly in his mind's eye, standing there looking awkward, one hand rubbing at his face. He didn't turn around.

When Mello moved his mouth to speak he realised that he'd gnawed his lip raw. The blood was salty against his tongue.

Salty.

Alive.

Mello stood up. "It doesn't matter what Roger says. I'm leaving now. I just wanted to..."

Alive.

_Leaving.  
_  
He couldn't use Matt's name, couldn't bring that simple syllable over the threshold of his lips, couldn't form it or speak it. He just turned and looked at the boy standing there, turned and looked at him and shrugged almost helplessly with his shoulders. They reached out to each other at the same time, then frowned, embarrassed, confused, and let their hands drop limply to their sides again, fingers catching anxiously at jeans and jacket pockets. Too much, too much all at once, and nowhere near enough.

For a moment Mello thought Matt was going to say something; going to order him to stay, or ask to go with him, or do something even crazier like reach out again and curve his palm against Mello's cheek. For a moment it was Mello's nightmare, and for a moment longer it was his dream.

Matt dropped his gaze and stared at his sneakers.

Mello's eyes blurred as he shouldered his bag.

_L was dead, Kira was L's destroyer, and he was still alive.  
_  
Perhaps he might have believed in a kinder God if he hadn't been followed from the chapel and through the school gates by image of Matt's eyes haunting him, Matt's eyes speaking the words his mouth had not... as if Mello's leaving were as bad as L's death.

But he had to go.

Because L was dead and he was still alive.

Where was the choice in that?


End file.
